People Lie to Themselves to Impress the Opposite Sex

The present studies investigated whether motives to impress an opposite-sex other might moderate memory for one’s own past evaluative actions. In two studies, participants were more likely to misrepresent and misremember their previous survey responses when they expected to meet an attractive rather than unattractive member of the opposite sex who was known to have responded differently from them, even when they were offered a meaningful reward for memory accuracy. The results have relevance for theories of story retelling, audience tuning, and motivation to establish a shared reality.

Could we blame natural selection by calling this self-deception in pursuit of procreation?